r acquaintance with this favorite of the gods; but
you might, it seems to me, postpone the work of salvation. You were away
from Alexandria for half a year, and if she could hold out so long as
that..."

"Do not speak so; you ought not to speak so!" cried Marcus, pressing
his hand on his heart as though in physical pain. "But I have no time to
lose, for I must at once find out where the old singer has taken her. I
am not so inexperienced as you seem to think. He has brought her here to
trade in her beauty, and enrich himself. Why, you, too, saw her on
board ship; I, as you know, had arranged for them to be taken in at my
mother's Xenodochium."

"Whom?" asked Demetrius folding his hands.

"The singers whom I brought with me from Ostia. And now they have
disappeared from thence, and Dada..."

"Dada!" cried Demetrius, bursting into a loud laugh without heeding
Marcus who stepped up to him, crimson with rage. "Dada! that little fair
puss! You see her day and night and an angel calls upon you to save that
child's merry soul? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, boy! Why, what
shall I wager now? I will stake this roll of gold that I could make her
come with me to-morrow--with me, a hard-featured countryman, freckled
all over like a plover's egg, where my clothes do not protect my skin,
and with hair on end like the top of a broom--yes, that she will follow
me to Arsinoe or wherever I choose to bid her. Let the hussy go, you
simple innocent. Such a Soul as hers is of small account even in a less
exclusive Heaven than yours is."

"Take back those words!" cried Marcus, beside himself and clenching
his fist. "But that is just like you! Your impure eyes and heart defile
purity itself, and see spots even in the sun. Nothing is too bad for a
'singing girl,' I know. But that is just the marrow of the matter; it is
from that very curse that I mean to save her. If you can accuse her
of anything, speak; if not, and if you do not want to appear a base
slanderer in my eyes, take back the words you have just spoken!"

"Oh! I take them back of course," said Demetrius indifferently. "I know
nothing of your beauty beyond what she has herself said to me and you
and Cynegius and his Secretaries--with her pretty, saucy eyes. But the
language of the eye, they say, is not always to be depended on; so take
it as unsaid. And, if I understood you rightly, you do not even know
where the singers are hiding? If you have no objection, I will help y